Unitron, everything worked flawlessly. Im going through the Tivo guided setup now. Thank you so much! I still have no idea how you know so much. In any case, I appreciate your time and effort to help me!

After going through guided set up, when I went to My Shows, it gave me Tivo Error #51. I googled it and people said to go to "Clear and Delete Everything". I did that and now its working fine.

That happens when you have used a Tivo image that was not originally from that specific Tivo because its "Married" to the Tivo Service number on the Main board which encodes the recordings. Another indication is in System Information, your Tivo Service Number are all Zeros. Clear & Delete Everything resolves this issue.

I think this is 11.0k and not m, but it's new enough to let you put a 2TB in there

...(links redacted because I'm new here)...

and promo code

EMCPHHP48

brings it down to $90

After restoring the image to a drive, when it says it finished and that you have extra space, and asks if you want to expand, tell it no.

Then check the drive with

mfsinfo

to make sure everything looks okay. At any time after that, including a test period in the TiVo if you like, you can expand by running

mfsadd

And as long as you've got the lid off, take a good look at the capacitors in the power supply--better yet, if you've got a voltmeter, check the actual DC output voltages where it plugs onto the motherboard.

Thanks unitron, this helped me immensely. I did make the mistake of not running winmfs as administrator, and got a bit sidetracked by that, but everything else worked very well. Replaced all the capacitors just in case, a couple were bulging, and might have contributed to the hard drive failing, as it won't even spin up anymore.

Thanks unitron, this helped me immensely. I did make the mistake of not running winmfs as administrator, and got a bit sidetracked by that, but everything else worked very well. Replaced all the capacitors just in case, a couple were bulging, and might have contributed to the hard drive failing, as it won't even spin up anymore.

This site has been great, so many helpful comments. Thanks!

Drive was probably going out anyway from old age, but bulgy caps mean you have to recap the power supply before you can rely on any other troubleshooting other than hooking the drive to a PC and running the drive maker's long test on it, or looking at it with

I realize that this image (should) work with WinMFS, but I never did have much luck with WinMFS. Is there an image that works with MFSLive, or is there a way I can convert this one to that other format?

I specifically mention the LBA count of the Maxtor drive because back then they made drives with a slightly higher LBA per GB count than the other brands like WD and Seagate, so the image taken from my Maxtor 80GB won't quite fit a WD or Seagate 80GB drive.

As the software which works for restoring images to Series 1, Series 2, and Series 3 TiVo models does not work on anything newer, and since the Premiere line are Series 4 models, allow me to suggest that you start reading here:

I have a TiVo Series-2 TCD240040 whose upgraded 160 Gb HDD finally died. I can't find my backup of the original drive. I'd like to just get it working again with a 40 or 80 Gb HDD.
Can someone please provide an image and tell me what size HDD will be needed for that image? Thank you VERY much in advance!

I have a TiVo Series-2 TCD240040 whose upgraded 160 Gb HDD finally died. I can't find my backup of the original drive. I'd like to just get it working again with a 40 or 80 Gb HDD.
Can someone please provide an image and tell me what size HDD will be needed for that image? Thank you VERY much in advance!

Back when the 240's were being made Maxtor was making drives that were slightly larger, number of sectors-wise, than the other brands for a given advertised size.

So if your TiVo originally came with a Maxtor, the way my 240 did, it would have a 40GB drive with a slightly higher LBA number than a WD or Seagate 40GB from that same era.

So an image made from it would need either another 40GB Maxtor onto which to be restored, or anybody's 60GB or larger drive.

Considering how difficult and expensive per GB it is to get PATA/IDE drives anymore that aren't used and used up, you should probably acquaint yourself with the SATA adapter thread.

I have images I made from a 240080, which means it'll need a 100GB or bigger drive, and I have an image from somebody else for a 24004A, but I have no idea if it came from a fat 40GB Maxtor or a normal 40GB WD or Seagate.

I am familiar with WinMFS and MFSTools but not MFSLive. I am also acquainted with IDE/SATA Adapaters: I'm an IT Dept mgr.

Beside an image or two to play with to try to get my 240 TiVo going again, I have had very poor luck with WinMFS. Restores won't complete and the repair tools won't complete. I get messages that WinMFS has stopped working and dead drives which must then be LLF'ed.

I am familiar with WinMFS and MFSTools but not MFSLive. I am also acquainted with IDE/SATA Adapaters: I'm an IT Dept mgr.

Beside an image or two to play with to try to get my 240 TiVo going again, I have had very poor luck with WinMFS. Restores won't complete and the repair tools won't complete. I get messages that WinMFS has stopped working and dead drives which must then be LLF'ed.

Thanks for any and all assistance!

You don't need to be acquainted with SATA adapters, you need to be acquainted with which ones work in which TiVos, which is why I pointed you to the thread where the people who have learned the hard way try to make it easier for the rest of us.

MFS Live is a bootable cd image (some version of Linux) with a version of MFS Tools included. It's what spike created before he created WinMFS.

These first two files were taken from my 240080 (or maybe it's a 24008A--doesn't matter, it'll still work in any 240), and they came off of a Maxtor, so that means you'll need at least a 100GB drive.

and they're the "b" version of the latest software, which was updated to the "c" version about a year ago to deal with the Saint TiVo's Day Massacre problem, so when they phone home to the mothership they'll want to spend some time downloading the update.

And that's after they sort out the TiVo Service Number mismatch.

The .bak is for use with MFS Live or MFS Tools.

The .tbk is for use with WinMFS.

The third file I got from I don't remember where and don't know if it came off of a fat Maxtor or not, so I'd plan on it needing a 60GB or bigger just in case.

Allow me to suggest that whichever software you use, you do the restore, check it with

mfsinfo

to make sure everything's okay and only then as a separate step use

mfsadd

to expand if there's any space into which to expand.

Also, if doing it command line style, do use the

-p

option (which tells it to use the 'optimized' partition layout that came standard starting with the S2s), but not the

-x

which is the expand after everything else is done option, which doesn't always work as a part of the restore command, and there's probably nothing gained by using

-z

Swap should be a minimum of 128

(-s128)

If using WinMFS, when you click on File, Restore, it'll give you the option on the partition layout in the same box as it lets you set the swap size, and if it doesn't then it should automatically do it with the optimized layout, where the first partition is sectors 1-63, inclusive, and the partition that starts on sector 64 will not be partition 2 (Bootstrap 1) as indicated on the partition map, but probably partition 13, and definitely one of the MFS Media partitions.

Unitron, Thank you very much for everything: The file links, the warning re: SATA adapters and especially the explanation of what each of the command-line options do. I like to understand what is going-on with the commands. Again, Thank You!